Guaraldi - holy grail rare vintage fuzz

please note these will be built fresh once your order is placed. expect ship time within 5-10 days of order.

This unit is dedicated to the wonderful Vince Guaraldi- the composer for the wonderful peanuts comics.

This fuzz takes you to a very warm and nostalgic place- a feeling like a hazy memory of cozy Christmas with the gentle lights and snowy, quiet atmosphere.

This pedal is a modified variant of the Sam Ash Fuzz Stainar, a very rare and unique sounding fuzz unit.

what category of effect does this fit into?

vintage fuzz. full of unique character and tending to sound different unit to unit. 

fuzz is more textured, and non-linear than other types of drive. out of all the drive categories, fuzz has the most obvious differences from circuit to circuit. a very wide range of textures and feels here.

generally good for emphasizing lead melodies in a song, and providing a layer/background of grain. it is like adding a blanket of unique timbre.

how would I describe the feel and texture?

This circuit has a unique, very vintage flavor to it, with an amazing range of gain that goes from light, surprisingly overdrive like grit, to full on vintage fuzz face like fuzz, and everything in between.

It is a unique sound completely on its own.

At some settings it gets very spitty, at others it can be raspy. Other settings, just a mild fuzz texture.

what kind of player would like this stompbox?

Someone who needs a truly rocking fuzz that makes an amplifier ROAR.

If you like the MK1 tonebender, this silicon version is absolutely worth experimenting with.

I feel this fuzz works very well for a very broad range of music genres.

features

soft touch, relay based true bypass switching. these foot switches tend to be more resilient than standard mechanical switches, and are extremely easy to replace in the event of a failure.

9v, center negative operation. around 10ma current draw.

please message me if you'd like to include an internal battery snap and holder. if you do not message me they automatically ship without one, only powered via center negative 9 volts. all midnight coast units can be daisy chained unless specifically stated.

knob layout

left to right

top row

volume- middle is just about unity, there is a bit of extra headroom for volume boost and/or to really push an amp.

fuzz- strikingly beautiful range of gain- I am infatuated with the lower gain sounds of this circuit.

bottom row

tone- left is a bass full fuzz that does not cut high end like many other fuzz tone controls. Dial it forward for a bass cut and an emphasis on the high end without sounding brutally shrill.

bias- gated and bloomy textures live here. turned left the fuzz becomes a trumpet emulator, with interesting gate and decay dynamics. turned to the right the fuzz becomes properly biased with the classic and more natural decay, response, and texture